TGI Friday’s Oreo madness copycat recipe

I’m generally not a big fan of restaurant desserts. They always sound so good, but then I spend seven dollars on a piece of cake that turns out kind of dry, and I spend the next hour thinking about how I could have made a WHOLE CAKE for seven dollars and it would have tasted SO MUCH BETTER. So I usually just skip dessert when we are eating out (unless we’re headed to Cold Stone on the way home). But back in the day, my husband (then boyfriend) and I used to eat at TGI Friday’s pretty regularly, and we’d always (ALWAYS!) get the Oreo Madness for dessert.

Smooth vanilla ice cream was sandwiched between two super thick, cookie shaped pieces of Oreo crust, and the entire thing was drizzled in copius amounts of fudge and caramel. It looked like a great big Oreo, but was way better. It was the one restaurant dessert I knew would never disappoint.

And then it went away. To be replaced by yet another hot cookie walnut brownie hybrid or some such nonsense. So I started making ice cream pie with Oreo crust at home in my attempts to fill the Oreo Madness void. But it just wasn’t cutting it. Without two layers of thick Oreo crust it wasn’t Oreo Madness, it was just ice cream pie (which frankly isn’t so bad – it’s just not Oreo Madness).

So I finally took matters into my own hands and created my very own Oreo Madness. Be warned – this is for serious Oreo lovers only. And since that’s actually a fake warning meant to make you more excited to try this recipe, here’s the REAL warning: find a really good hiding place in your freezer for a few of these or your kids will eat the last of them and then you’ll be forced to make them again the very next day. And that would be bad. For your hips, at least.

To make these delightful little desserts, start by setting your ice cream out on the counter to soften up for a few minutes while you make the Oreo crust. Dump a whole package of Oreos into a food processor and pulse until you have small crumbs.

Next, melt one stick of butter and drizzle over the Oreo crumbs, continuing to pulse until combined. When this step is complete, you’ll be able to grab a bit of the crumbs and squeeze them in your fist, and they’ll keep that shape, like so:

Now you’ll scoop up one tablespoon of buttery Oreo crumbs (I use my 1.5 T scoop and just didn’t fill it full, but feel free to use an actual tablespoon here)…

…and dump it into a muffin liner that has been spritzed with nonstick spray. Gently pat the crumbs down into a crust in the bottom of the muffin liner. Try to get all the crumbs down on the bottom, not letting any ride up the sides of the liner (this will make a prettier finished product).

Next, you’ll need your ice cream and a 1/4 C measure. If you have a 1/4 C measure that is shaped like this one (very similar shape to the cupcake liners) it will make the process simpler. If not, just make do with whatever you have.

Fill that measuring cup to the top with ice cream, packing it down and leveling off the top to get a true 1/4 C.

Using a spoon, scoop the ice cream out onto the Oreo crusts in the cupcake liners.

If the ice cream is still pretty hard, let it sit for five or ten more minutes until it’s soft enough to gently press down into the cupcake liners, smoothing the top.

Finally, top each mini ice cream pie with a full scoop (or 1 and a half tablespoons) of the remaining crumb mixture, and carefully pat down. Don’t push too hard, or the softened ice cream will come squishing out. Note: this makes a nice thick crust on the top and bottom for a total of 18 treats. If you’d like to stretch it to 22 or 24 treats, use a scant tablespoon for both the top and bottom crusts, and plan on using six cups of ice cream total (instead of the 5 listed in the recipe below).

Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for two hours or until firm. Then gently remove the cupcake liner, drizzle with hot fudge and caramel ice cream toppings, and chow down!

You can use vanilla ice cream (which is what Friday’s used to use), but we kicked things up a notch with caramel and peanut butter cup ice creams. Mint would also be fantastic.

Oreo Madness Recipe (makes 18)

1 package Oreos, crushed into crumbs

1 cube butter, melted

5 C ice cream (a standard 1.75 qt ice cream tub is plenty)

hot fudge and caramel toppings

Take ice cream out of freezer to soften. Mix Oreo crumbs and butter to make crust. Press 1 T crumbs into cupcake liner sprayed with nonstick spray. Place 1/4C ice cream on top of crust and smooth down. Top with 1.5 T crumbs to make top crust. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze two hours until firm, then remove cupcake liner and top with hot fudge and caramel.

Comments

Aggghh! You always post the WORST things on your blog! (And by that I mean the worst things for me to resist!!! I just got Dreyer’s on sale. Now I know what to do with the six ice-creams I bought. (I guess if I bought six ice-creams then your recipes can only take partial credit for my unhealthy eating.

Yum! We made these today (even better – my 5 year old made them while I “assisted”) and they are incredible. They were so much fun to make with simple ingredients and everyone loved ’em. Only change I’m making next time is to do a double batch! Thanks Autumn!

The actual TGI Fridays recipe was very similar. They used pieces of pvc pipe (diameter of the final product Oreo Cookie) and packed the cookie crust into the pvc w a soup can (same size as final product) then added ice cream, and another layer of crust. Packing it down helps make the Oreo Madness nice and firm. The real secret to the Oreo Madness was the butterscotch carmel blend they used along w the fudge. Best item Fridays ever discontinued. They reissued it about 7 yrs ago w some soggy oreo ice cream sandwich u can buy at any gas station. Lame (

I’m very late to the party, but I am so excited to make these! I have a silly question, when you say to put a whole package of Oreos in a processor, you mean with the creme still inside them, right? Just wondering!

You’re welcome! Everyone I’ve ever served them to has LOVED them. My kids love them so much that I may or may not hide a few in the back of the freezer so there will actually be one or two left over for me the next day 😉

Oh, what they used to serve was so much better than those klondike bars – I wonder why they’ve changed it? They don’t even sell it at any of the restaurants here anymore, which makes me sad. Maybe it was just too much work to make and the klondike bars are an easy substitution. Oh well, at least I can make it at home now! Thanks for visiting!

OMGOODNESS!! My sentiments exactly. Eric and I used to go to Friday’s every chance we got, just for an Oreo Madness. Where we would “share” one, only to fight over those last few bites. Why oh why did they take it away?? Can’t wait to try this!!

I would swap out the butter for Magic Shell – you know, that ice cream topping that hardens when it gets cold. That’s actually what they use at Dairy Queen to make the cookie crunch inside the ice cream cakes – cookie crunch + cone coating. Yum!

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